Ukraine

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, who speaks with great wisdom and insight—as did the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, in a very remarkable maiden speech.

When I heard this chilling news yesterday morning in the first half of the “Today” programme, my mind went back to a day in the autumn of 1956, when my father woke me to say that the Russians were firing phosphorous shells into Budapest. That provoked me into joining a political party, in a democracy, to play a part. I duly came to the other place in 1970 and became chairman of the campaign for the release of Soviet Jewry. I was talking to one young man on the eve of his bar mitzvah as the KGB were knocking on the door.

Some 25 years later, in 1989, I took part in a communion service in the Hotel Oktiabrskaya in Moscow, in the shadow of the Kremlin, where they always used to put up the delegations from eastern Europe. I was able to present to Mr Gorbachev’s chef de cabinet, Andrei Grachev, a copy of the Bible, symbolic of a million that we were giving to a small group that had formed liaisons within the then Soviet Union. I could not help but reflect on those words of Wordsworth’s, written in a very different setting:

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive”—


even though I was perhaps not all that young.

Later that year, I was one of a group who chaired sessions in the Peace Palace of the Hague, composed of parliamentarians from the different constituent republics of the Soviet Union. We felt that a new era had dawned. It was something very remarkable, as it was when I took a group of Members of both Houses to Czechoslovakia, as it then was, in 1991. We met the great Mr Dubček. The world seemed to have changed. In a very remarkable speech, the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, talked about his meetings with Mr Putin, at a time when it looked as though he might hold the torch for freedom—but we have now descended into the darkest days of the most desperate Tsars. Yesterday was a demonstration of that.

In this context, we cannot use hard power. We have not actually got very much to use. There is no point in rattling sabres if all you have are scabbards. However, we do have very real soft power, and it is an independent soft power, best exemplified perhaps by the BBC World Service. So I ask the Minister to give a guarantee today that no money will be spared to expand broadcasting services not only in Russia but throughout the former Soviet republics, many of which Mr Putin appears to have his eyes on. It is important that people know the truth, know what is happening, know exactly the measure of the dictator who is now behaving with such appalling savagery towards an innocent people.

It is also important that we take note of two points that were made during this very interesting debate. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, in his excellent speech, talked of how necessary it was that we who are in free Europe should work as one. Brexit is over, but we must forge a new, powerful relationship with the countries of the European Union—all the countries of Europe who believe in democracy and freedom. He was wise to say that. The noble Lords, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Dannatt, talked, also in the context of broadcasting, about making sure that those who live under threat, and those who live in Russia itself, know that democracy alone can prevail, and that dictatorship has no future other than misery.

It is good that we have had this debate. I very much hope that the united voice of your Lordships’ House will be conveyed.